Perhaps my argument here is non sequiter.You be the judge.But forgive my rambling.I don't always think in a perfectly straight line.That's especially true when it comes to remembering our veterans.
When I was young,there were still living veterans from both world wars.Those from the first war were very old men for the most part,at least in their sixties or seventies.The Second World War had ended only fifteen years before I was born,so there were plenty of relatively young men around with fresh,or should I perhaps say,raw memories of what that time and experience was like.Even as a young child I had the sense that many of these people,and everyone,absolutely everyone knew some of these people,were deeply haunted by the living out of that part of their lives.Many would not,could not talk of what happened on those battlefields.You see,to a young boy war seems glamorous,especially when you are still living in the shadow of it,and he wants to hear those stories and find glory in them.The same glory we used to see in all those John Wayne films.But such a thing,if it ever existed could not be found in any of the veterans that I knew.You see,their stories were real,and whats real is not so easy to talk about.
Just a few short years ago I had the privilege of getting to know on of Canada's veterans rather well.We came from the same part of the country,you see,and we shared a love of traditional music,which is how we came to meet.There were things that we did not agree about,specifically political things,but in the end we got along famously and I've always considered this man to be a mentor.And,he told me a story about his time in the war that I will never forget.
It was a terrible time he said,a bad time for everyone.He was a young man when he signed up and after a few short weeks he was sent to Normandy.His account,at least when he gave it to me said nothing of bombs exploding or low flying planes or bullets passing close.No talk of guns or smoke or tanks.It's as if those things were all absent.But what he did tell me revealed so much about what that time was like,and even more about how it is we should think about war.
"Once I was there for some time,I got a letter from my mother.It told me how my brother was killed in Italy.Then I got angry,with an anger I'd never had in my life.I knew I was there and I knew why.I had no doubt I was doing the right thing,and I understand why it was the right thing.It wasn't just because my country was telling me it was the right thing.So I was there and I had a gun and I was trying to kill men who were trying to kill me.Then that letter came,and it made me angry."And he paused for a long time.A long time."Then,I fired that gun for my brother.And I know I killed people.Before that,I was firing my gun,but I wasn't certain I was killing anyone...war is like that.But then,I know I killed people,once my brother was gone and I started fighting for him.What I don't know though,about those people I killed is,I don't know what happened to their soul."And that was his story as he told it to me.After some time he absorbed some shrapnel and his fighting ended.But not has war.He always wondered,he said, why God had taken his brother and left him.And he wondered forever about the condition of some nameless German souls.
What does his story tell us today?The old cliche that "war is hell"is no less true for it's having been said so often,for one thing.There was no real glory in war for this man and it's ghosts followed him until he drew his last breath.The only glory was that this man went and did his duty with a good idea as to the moral necessity of doing that duty.He believed in the right of what he was doing,at least in he beginning.And if he was not so convinced later in life,he came home with the fine and moral and unselfish idea that the souls of those slaughtered mattered,no matter what side of the battlefield they fell on.
I was honored to know this man.His story was so unlike that of what I though a war story should be,and yet so revealing.But my deep concern is with younger people today,who will never have the opportunity to know such a man.I don't know what war really means to them,what they think they are doing when they remember and when they wear the poppy.Some of them come from military families,of course,and some of them were taught well to remember.Some,as well will have friends who have known war in some far off country.But it's really not the same as living in that once long shadow.
War must have another purpose.Not that I prefer war to it's opposite,but when I see the world I'm living in today,it makes me wonder if,the more distant we get in time from those times which we say we remember each November 11,the more uncivil we become to each other.To be fair,there are many differences in our world today.It is such a different place.But it is hard to deny that we are.by comparison to fifty years ago lacking civility.
Today we are surrounded by social media,and I think we have to ask how that affects us as a society.Over the last few days I've posted many things about this season of remembrance on my facebook page.But,it's not the same as visiting a veterans memorial and having the cold and snow to remind me just what the sacrifice of those people really was.The internet is,to a large extent anonymous,or at least distant from the way we used to engage our world.It is argued by some that this makes things like cyber bullying and stalking more likely,and a sense of not caring about others and an attendant narcissism more the social norm.My question is,though,what does this have to do with war?
Today war is fought by professional soldiers,and I thank God for them.At least in this country,no one is called to serve that has not chosen to do so.We recently sent troops to Afghanistan,and some were lost.But that sacrifice was made by those who were being paid to do a job.It's not near the same as the World Wars,when our entire country,both military people,and those at home sacrificed to triumph in a perhaps not noble,but a necessary cause.My point then is that we were all in it together,and we knew it.We had some idea of the desperation in that struggle,and how very much our world would be different if we did not see it through to victory,at whatever cost required.And our world could very easily been defeated.It was so close.
Nearly all those brave men and women have passed now,and I fear that we live in a world that knows so little of sacrifice.Sure,some of us sacrifice for our children,or our career,or some such thing.But o any of us really know the sacrifice to preserve our whole way of life?Consequently,is the value of that way of life ever really apparent to us,especially as we get farther away in time from those terrible years.There seems no sense of striving together these days.And perhaps that is the whole higher purpose of war.By default do we become more selfish and less caring,thus bringing our world to a state that our enemies failed to do?Is that the danger of not remembering?I fear it may be,and that is why I say,"LEST WE FORGET"
We would do well to remember that civility,even towards those who do not share our worldview,is about concerning ourselves with the souls of others and knowing that there is dignity attached to each of hose souls.
When I was young,there were still living veterans from both world wars.Those from the first war were very old men for the most part,at least in their sixties or seventies.The Second World War had ended only fifteen years before I was born,so there were plenty of relatively young men around with fresh,or should I perhaps say,raw memories of what that time and experience was like.Even as a young child I had the sense that many of these people,and everyone,absolutely everyone knew some of these people,were deeply haunted by the living out of that part of their lives.Many would not,could not talk of what happened on those battlefields.You see,to a young boy war seems glamorous,especially when you are still living in the shadow of it,and he wants to hear those stories and find glory in them.The same glory we used to see in all those John Wayne films.But such a thing,if it ever existed could not be found in any of the veterans that I knew.You see,their stories were real,and whats real is not so easy to talk about.
Just a few short years ago I had the privilege of getting to know on of Canada's veterans rather well.We came from the same part of the country,you see,and we shared a love of traditional music,which is how we came to meet.There were things that we did not agree about,specifically political things,but in the end we got along famously and I've always considered this man to be a mentor.And,he told me a story about his time in the war that I will never forget.
It was a terrible time he said,a bad time for everyone.He was a young man when he signed up and after a few short weeks he was sent to Normandy.His account,at least when he gave it to me said nothing of bombs exploding or low flying planes or bullets passing close.No talk of guns or smoke or tanks.It's as if those things were all absent.But what he did tell me revealed so much about what that time was like,and even more about how it is we should think about war.
"Once I was there for some time,I got a letter from my mother.It told me how my brother was killed in Italy.Then I got angry,with an anger I'd never had in my life.I knew I was there and I knew why.I had no doubt I was doing the right thing,and I understand why it was the right thing.It wasn't just because my country was telling me it was the right thing.So I was there and I had a gun and I was trying to kill men who were trying to kill me.Then that letter came,and it made me angry."And he paused for a long time.A long time."Then,I fired that gun for my brother.And I know I killed people.Before that,I was firing my gun,but I wasn't certain I was killing anyone...war is like that.But then,I know I killed people,once my brother was gone and I started fighting for him.What I don't know though,about those people I killed is,I don't know what happened to their soul."And that was his story as he told it to me.After some time he absorbed some shrapnel and his fighting ended.But not has war.He always wondered,he said, why God had taken his brother and left him.And he wondered forever about the condition of some nameless German souls.
What does his story tell us today?The old cliche that "war is hell"is no less true for it's having been said so often,for one thing.There was no real glory in war for this man and it's ghosts followed him until he drew his last breath.The only glory was that this man went and did his duty with a good idea as to the moral necessity of doing that duty.He believed in the right of what he was doing,at least in he beginning.And if he was not so convinced later in life,he came home with the fine and moral and unselfish idea that the souls of those slaughtered mattered,no matter what side of the battlefield they fell on.
I was honored to know this man.His story was so unlike that of what I though a war story should be,and yet so revealing.But my deep concern is with younger people today,who will never have the opportunity to know such a man.I don't know what war really means to them,what they think they are doing when they remember and when they wear the poppy.Some of them come from military families,of course,and some of them were taught well to remember.Some,as well will have friends who have known war in some far off country.But it's really not the same as living in that once long shadow.
War must have another purpose.Not that I prefer war to it's opposite,but when I see the world I'm living in today,it makes me wonder if,the more distant we get in time from those times which we say we remember each November 11,the more uncivil we become to each other.To be fair,there are many differences in our world today.It is such a different place.But it is hard to deny that we are.by comparison to fifty years ago lacking civility.
Today we are surrounded by social media,and I think we have to ask how that affects us as a society.Over the last few days I've posted many things about this season of remembrance on my facebook page.But,it's not the same as visiting a veterans memorial and having the cold and snow to remind me just what the sacrifice of those people really was.The internet is,to a large extent anonymous,or at least distant from the way we used to engage our world.It is argued by some that this makes things like cyber bullying and stalking more likely,and a sense of not caring about others and an attendant narcissism more the social norm.My question is,though,what does this have to do with war?
Today war is fought by professional soldiers,and I thank God for them.At least in this country,no one is called to serve that has not chosen to do so.We recently sent troops to Afghanistan,and some were lost.But that sacrifice was made by those who were being paid to do a job.It's not near the same as the World Wars,when our entire country,both military people,and those at home sacrificed to triumph in a perhaps not noble,but a necessary cause.My point then is that we were all in it together,and we knew it.We had some idea of the desperation in that struggle,and how very much our world would be different if we did not see it through to victory,at whatever cost required.And our world could very easily been defeated.It was so close.
Nearly all those brave men and women have passed now,and I fear that we live in a world that knows so little of sacrifice.Sure,some of us sacrifice for our children,or our career,or some such thing.But o any of us really know the sacrifice to preserve our whole way of life?Consequently,is the value of that way of life ever really apparent to us,especially as we get farther away in time from those terrible years.There seems no sense of striving together these days.And perhaps that is the whole higher purpose of war.By default do we become more selfish and less caring,thus bringing our world to a state that our enemies failed to do?Is that the danger of not remembering?I fear it may be,and that is why I say,"LEST WE FORGET"
We would do well to remember that civility,even towards those who do not share our worldview,is about concerning ourselves with the souls of others and knowing that there is dignity attached to each of hose souls.
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